


Seven ways to damnation

by killbot2000



Category: Darkest Dungeon (Video Game)
Genre: Character Study, Copious references to the inferno, F/F, Gore, Religious Conflict, Violence, relationship is minor don’t bother w this if that’s what you’re looking for, the light is just... video game Christianity
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-10-22
Updated: 2020-11-12
Packaged: 2021-03-09 00:15:55
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 2
Words: 3,237
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27145097
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/killbot2000/pseuds/killbot2000
Summary: Junia learns the hard way how to keep the faith.
Relationships: Grave robber/vestal
Kudos: 8





	1. Ira

The bones chatter. They speak a language that the living brain cannot understand. The bones grind their teeth and brandish their ancient maces and do other things bones were never supposed to without the permission of flesh. 

The crusader faithfully cuts them down with his greatsword. The swings aren’t always clean; sometimes they get stuck on a joint still fused by dried cartilage and it pinches and he must tug and tug until the weapon is free. It gives the others ample time to move around him, time to slash their rusted daggers at her and the others. 

Junia summons her strength to rain down judgment on the rabble. The presence of the Light is enough to stun the creatures, but that could just be the lightning. One skull pops with the force and it falls to the ground, limbs still moving like a wind-up toy. 

An armored skeleton is the last. Its huge breastplate implies a much larger man in life, but has all wasted away long ago, leaving just the metallic shell. The metal is adorned with seals not dissimilar to the ones Reynauld wears, though Junia couldn’t tell what they are supposed to commemorate. 

The thing raises its huge weapon in all its rusted spiked glory, and swings down. It makes contact with the crusader ane he crumbles like old stone under the weapon with a screech of metal on metal. The skeleton uses the mace to send him flying across the room, surely puncturing his compromised armor. The ends of the spikes now drip blood. 

She faintly hears the highwayman call after him, and the room erupts in a flash of gunpowder and smoke. Paracelsus lobs another pouch from behind her, this one filled with acidic bile that eats away at the bones. Another strikes the skull. Its eye sockets stare into Junia, the left half of the face melting as if its made of hot wax. She grips her mace but is met again with the vision of Reynauld getting skewered. The reaction is viceral. Is he dead? She can hear the highwayman yelling for her. Has the noble soldier fallen to this rabble? 

“God favors not the meek!” She turns and calls to Reynauld. “Find some courage or burden me no more!” 

She raises her mace and thunder shakes the crumbling castle walls. It arcs and shoots a hole in the head of the skeleton. The hole is black and smoldering and the skeleton’s bones fall and scatter. 

Junia approaches her fallen comrade. Dismas watches the crusader, dark eyes full of concern, his hands on Reynauld’s gauntlet, not sure how to act. 

“How uninspiring you are.” She tells him, curling her lip. She kicks his boot. “Get up.” 

“Hey!” Dismas barks at her, “Can’t ya use some of yer holy bullshit to help him?” 

“I can only perform blessings on those worthy.” Junia spits back at him. She makes for the door across the room, prepared to move on. The apocryphal doctor kneels by Reynauld and offers him something from a satchel. She bandages his wounds. Junia pretends not to notice. 

No science nor herbs that smell of strong earth would help them in this place. She won’t cater to the illusion they aren’t damned. 

The four souls move on. In the hallway the highwayman pockets coins, the physic cracks open tomes that would serve better as kindling. Reynauld, limping in pain, beholds a rusted suit of armor, and takes a moment to catch his breath. 

“Move on, you lout. You’ll never be as great as the first.” 

The crusader turns to look at her through his helm. He speaks not but she can tell he’s squirming under there. 

“Let’s keep going.” Dismas comes up from behind her. He touches her on the armored shoulder in a comforting manner, meant to deescalate instead of provoke. 

Junia spins and uses her verse book as a club, striking the bandit across the face. The pages of the holy book flutter violently in the binding. 

He keels over, hand cupped over his nose that dribbles blood between his gloved fingers. 

“Don’t touch me! I know your type, brigand. A simple touch now, but what later, hm?” She shrieks and shakes the blood from the paper pages. 

He protests thickly, “What the hell, woman?” And pinches what’s probably another broken nose. 

“Junia.” Reynauld cautions. He holds his hands up but the nun waves the mace she carries between them warningly. 

“Get moving. Go.” 

In the room at the end of the hallway are more dancing bones. They go through the motions. Junia uses Reynauld as a shield to lure the bones to her and strikes them down with her mace. 

The only blood in this dungeon is that which flows through their own veins. Dismas’ bleeding nose is the only blood visible to her until the courtier splashes a goblet of horrible red-black vinegar onto her chest. Her white robes are stained and her eyes burn like hellfire itself and she can see only rage as she crushes the thing under thunder and holy lightning. The bones chatter at her, mocking. 

“Suffer!” Her screaming is shrill and tears her throat and she is left crushing the last of the bone men into a fine powder on the floor. 

“Junia.” Paracelsus repeats herself. The nun stops herself mid-swing to see the doctor, quizzical look from the plague mask, head cocked and hand outstretched. 

Junia looks around in a daze to see the skeletons have long since stopped moving. The one underneath her is mangled beyond the recognition of a soldier. Paracelsus curls her fingers to indicate she wants to help Junia to her feet. 

“Don’t bother.” The nun brushes her off, “Go use your blasphemous cures elsewhere.” 

Paracelsus backs off and straightens herself, looking like a cockerel ready to crow. She could strike Junia with the blade in her satchel and she feels their other companions wouldn’t mind. But what that will evoke from Junia, she doesn’t know. The woman is unpredictable and Paracelsus feels she will bear the consequences. 

They trudge back to the entrance of the ruins in silence. The highwayman eyes Junia wearily from the back ranks, and it doesn’t bother her as much as it should. There’s blood caked on his face and soaked well through his kerchief but she only delivered into him a taste of what awaited him. People have gotten worse for far less. 

A final pair of cultists appear around the corner to the entrance. They’re idle, scratching their blades on whetstones, nothing they couldn’t handle. It proves to be her downfall, of course.

The brawler pair is now dead, dismembered by the holy blade of the crusader. He tends to the wounds inflicted on the bandit, some lucky hit or other. 

But Junia’s well on her way to bleeding out. Her side’s been gashed so deep it makes her dizzy to think what she could reach in and pull out like sticky offerings. She holds the lifeblood in. 

“Remove your hand.” Paracelsus tells her, hands prepared with gauze. She kneels by her companion, kit open on the stone floor exposing the various tools to the cool air. 

Junia shakes her head weakly. “I only need the Light. Don’t fool me with your science.” She wads up and spits the last word as an insult to the physic. 

“Sister, let me heal you.” The doctor protests and tries to bat her hands away. 

“No, I’m-“ She says as white hot pain shoots through her brain. 

Paracelsus removes her fingers from the wound as Junia’s eyes roll back into her head from the sensation. She splashes a vial of antiseptic on the puncture, not quite able to cleanse it to her satisfaction but she doesn’t have time. Her needle and thread are already prepared, and she makes a few vital stitches as Junia comes back to. 

The nun’s voice is thick but almost hysteric, “You put your fingers in me.” 

“Don’t talk like that, Sister.” Junia is too shocked to notice Paracelsus’ quick hands bandage her wound. 

“You touched my wound.” 

The physic holds her bloody hands up in surrender and admission of guilt. “But you’ll live, my dear.” 

Junia gingerly pats the bandage by her side. “Your luck I’m too exhausted to correct the mistakes you have most likely made.” 

“What luck.”


	2. Gula

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Tw for gore, impalement, cannibalism (implied) unsanitary environment (welcome to the warrens!) , vomiting (from overeating) 
> 
> I have emetophobia so this was a bitch to write but how else can you explore gluttony, really

The warrens drip. She’s not sure with what, but rivulets of greasy liquid stream down the stone walls in sheets. The drips are rather like unsightly slugs, gobs of fat and flesh leaving bloody mucous trails in their wake. They collect along the seam where the floor meets the wall neither in piles nor puddles, but something in the writhing middle. Junia focuses her attention back to holding the torch. 

The bounty hunter and highwayman are arguing over a map several paces farther down the hallway. Josephine, the antique collector and resident dead weight, walks behind her, jewels and trinkets clinking gently with each footstep. Junia is thankful the pig-men don’t have exceptional hearing, otherwise she would have protested against bringing Josephine all the louder. 

“Do you think they’re lost?” The woman asks Junia. She has a smooth, low voice that hides a silver tongue only used in matters of barter. 

The nun looks to her, face drawn more into a grouchy expression than anything else. “Better not, ‘less they want to become a pair of drums.” 

Josephine giggles and they continue to shuffle along. There’s a patrol of pig-men they cut down with ease. The drum beats still ring in Junia’s ears when they settle down to make camp. 

She watches Dismas with idle interest as he strings little bells across the entrance to their dirty room. He pulls on a taut string with a finger and it snaps back, ringing clear and high notes. 

Junia looks down to the food in her lap and begins to eat what her stomach can hold. The warrens manage to take what appetite she can muster through the initial anxiety of embarking onto the grounds. Sludge drips from the walls and it stinks like bad tallow. The sounds of pig-men are far off but present. 

Dismas makes an off-color remark about pigs fucking when he sits and it’s the last straw as Junia wraps up her remaining bread and slips it back in her rucksack. She side-eyes Josephine but the woman is already asleep, left surprisingly undisturbed by any psychological assaults the warrens commit on her. She cuts like butter, though. Junia’s never seen anyone bleed like the antiquarian does. She dozes into fitful dreams. 

The bounty hunter shakes her awake roughly. 

“We’re moving on, sister.” He tells her, though his voice is gentle. The sounds of the warrens are louder now, and while Dismas is rolling up the string of bells, she knows they’ve been surprised. 

There’s a few of the smaller creatures, the impish beings that bear the face and skin of a pig, but it’s rubbery and pulled taught over a skeleton made for something else. Their mouths loll open and threaten hot spatterings of bile. 

But behind them is something Junia has never seen the likes of before. It’s huge, towering over even the bounty hunter. Plate armor covers its fleshy upper body and hides its face and it carries a lance covered in blood and grease. Junia wonders what it eats to grow to that size. 

She’s the first to strike, setting one of the imps back to hell with a flash of divine retribution. Dismas and Samael cut down the swine drummer that pounds dread into their bones. The bounty hunter is struck by the remaining swine wretch, its small body convulsing as it spasms up pale vomit on his cuirass. He whirled with uncharacteristic speed and cleaves the little beast in two. 

The creature backs up, witnessing the fall of its companions, and readies that terrible weapon. Then it charges, hellish squealing coming from under its helmet like the damned. Dismas is skewered by the lance and a wheezing sound comes from him as his lungs are pierced and air escapes him. 

The beast retreats and Dismas falls limp as the weapon leaves his body with a squelch. 

“Dismas!” Someone’s screaming. She isn’t sure if it’s her, the hunter, their antiquarian. 

Samael rises from the bandit’s side and throws his hook at the creature. It catches and he pulls. There’s too much weight for him to pull closer, but he does manage to pull the thing down to its meaty knees. Junia focuses herself on smiting the beast, and from the corner of her eye, she can see Josephine pick up Dismas’ fallen pistol with her delicate hands. 

They shake when they fire the flintlock, but her aim is true. Or it is very, very lucky. The bounty hunter passes the rope to the antiquarian, approaches the bleeding creature squealing in pain, axe in hand and raises it with slight confidence, like a butcher would. He will make short work of it. 

Junia turns her attention to the bandit. Blood’s leaking from the corner of his mouth and there’s a faraway look in his eyes. “Let the Light guide my hand.” She murmurs and sets a palm on his chest, the other gripping her mace as a conduit for the divine grace bestowed upon her companion. 

There is a strange sound as the light fills his wound. A humming and whispers of words that keep Junia tethered to her faith. Without them, she would be nothing. 

Dismas gasps painfully when the energy courses through him, then leaves his body limp as it vanishes. There’s still blood splattered on his face, and Junia wipes it away with her sleeve. 

“Junia…” 

The other two party members are now crowded around his head. Josephine looks faint and Samael, well. Junia supposses he looks concerned. 

“This is payment…” Dismas whispers. 

She leans closer to hear his whisper. 

“For bein’ such a bitch.” 

He laughs painfully, the sound divulging into coughs, and she sits back up, rolling her eyes. 

“He’s fine.” 

They take a little time to regroup. The bounty hunter helps Dismas back to his feet while Josephine scavenges the carcass for jewels and trinkets and whatever else catches her fancy. 

“What is it you think they eat?” Junia whispers to her while she works. “Down here nothing grows.” 

Josephine gives her a look. It’s a knowing one, an obvious one, like she doesn’t want to humor Junia with a simple fact. 

“I thought there might’ve been other answers.” 

Her companion gives a grunt of agreement. She pulls a stone from her pocket. 

“Found this beauty on the creature.” Josephine extends her hand. There’s a ruby on her soft palm, cushioning it like velvet, nearly spanning edge to edge. It looks heavy. 

Junia whistles between her teeth. “The heir will be pleased.” 

There’s a final room before the end of the warrens. It would be best to move on and escape at last, but there’s a long trek back to the hamlet and Dismas has wriggled himself from the antiquarian’s grip to sit on a stone bench beside a table. He looks pale and keeps his hand firmly pressed to his chest. 

But, as bandits do, he’s spotted something valuable left unattended. It’s not gold, otherwise Josephine would’ve sniffed it out two rooms over, but food. A feast, left unattended. A meal for whatever the beasts down here call a king. 

“Mister Dismas…” Junia cautions, “I wouldn’t eat that-” 

“Shhh, Sister.” He says harshly, “I ain’t a hot meal in weeks. Cunt in the tavern only wants to serve wine.” 

The bounty hunter looks from the table to the nun, then back to the table. He shambles over and takes a seat on the bench across from Dismas. 

“Eh hehe. Dig in, old boy.” The brigand says and begins his own selection of the meats. 

Junia’s stomach rumbles. She watches as the antiquarian joins the two men, sitting next to the bounty hunter and politely pouring herself a glass of wine. 

Josephine gestures her over. “Come. I’ll pour your drink, sister.” 

A weary sigh of defeat escapes Junia before she can stop it. She sits across from the antiquarian, gently pulling a spare cloth onto her lap and taking a sip of the wine from a crude stone cup setting the table. It’s thick and vinegary. 

“Have a piece, sister. Have a taste.” Dismas forks a slice of some meat onto his plate. It’s perfectly cooked; crisp black skin giving way to rich brown, down to a secret pink center. The smell is enough for Junia to heed the brigand’s words. 

There is bread. Baked with coarse grains but slathered in a butter Josephine uncovered, topped with a red berry jam. It’s sharp and sweet and not even the brigand can name the fruit it’s made of. There is more wine, so much wine. 

There are eggs, boiled and fried. To eat by themselves or with the meat. There are dried stone fruits, each pit plucked out delicately by past hands. There are black olives, green olives, a dark purple; there is a soft cheese, still cool to the touch. 

Josephine pushes her a plate. Fine China; hairline cracks blooming from the center. The nun starts with a slice of meat, brisket she supposes, sided with bread, olives, and a handful of dried fruits. It fills something in her she knows she’s ignoring too much. 

She tries a bigger piece, a white meat this time. Downs another cup on wine and elbows Dismas for a third serving. 

“My, my—“ He starts but she ignores him and tears into the meat. It’s slightly rubbery and tastes strongly of barn animal, as if it was cooked in a pigpen. 

Junia wipes her mouth, rises to her feet and lifts her cup, “Let us celebrate what the light has so generously gifted us. Let this feast sustain us on our long journey home.” She tilts her chin high as she drains the cup. Red droplets remain on the stone after she’s finished. 

The nun falls back into her seat in a haze. She finds herself sneaking bits of scraps off the plate of Dismas, who’s dozing and a little pale-faced. Across the table, Samael has replaced his veil and is, she guesses by his gentle breathing, asleep, arms crossed. 

Something bubbles in the back of Junia’s throat and leaves a sour taste in her mouth that overtakes even the vinegary wine. Next to the bounty hunter, Josephine is beginning to examine the tableware that isn’t stone. 

The sensation continues and she gets to her feet quickly, the strange euphoria of the feast ebbing away fast. It leaves her feeling full, much too full. As if she’s a barrel stuffed too high with meat, butchers pushing the flesh down so that they may fit more. She saw the butchers; those horrible beasts with rusty cleavers, their mucous covered faces steaming with rage, never blinking. Only then does she remember her conversation with Josephine. 

There is heat in her mouth and Junia’s made it across the room in time to vomit out of view of the others. It shakes her body and stings her eyes, nose, and throat, and she doesn’t stop convulsing until the feast is up and out of her body, joining the slime and shit of the warrens. 

She decides not to mention it to the others.


End file.
